1. Field of Art
The present generally relates to the field of data services for wireless networks, and more specifically to brand-specific customization and implementation of wireless functions.
2. Description of the Related Art
A company can leverage the strength of its brand by offering wireless services. Offering wireless services provides a branded company with an additional revenue stream, an additional channel for customer communication and deeper customer relationships and/or enhanced customer loyalty initiatives. Currently, many companies have become Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) to extend their brand into the wireless domain. Because MVNOs do not generally have dedicated wireless networks they often rely on Mobile Virtual Network Enablers (MVNEs) to provide data and voice networks as well as wireless functions such as order management, customer billing, application management or other customer or support services. This also allows MVNEs to distribute fixed costs and administrative overhead over a greater number of wireless subscribers by aggregating the demand of multiple MVNOs.
However, to carry out these roles, MVNEs must provision and manage services provided by different networks and by different third party providers. In the case of data services, MVNEs must communicate with various types of data providers, such as ringtone providers, streaming content providers and/or messaging providers. To allow branded companies to customize data services offerings, MVNEs must be able to interoperate with different data providers associated with different branded companies. However, various data providers generally have different operational requirements and protocols and different branded companies may implement different variations of a wireless function.